Container longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) seedlings
often survive and grow better after outplanting than bareroot
seedlings. Because of this, most longleaf pine are now produced
in containers. Little is known about nursery fertilization effects
on the quality of container longleaf pine seedlings and how that
influences outplanting performance. We compared various fertilization
rates (0.5, 1, 2, 3, or 4 mg nitrogen (N) per week for 20 weeks)
for two crops (2004 and 2005) of container longleaf pine, grown
inside a fullycontrolled greenhouse (2004 and 2005) or in an
outdoor compound (2005). Seedlings grew larger in the nursery
with increasing amounts of N. After 20 weeks of fertilizer treatment,
seedlings received two additional fertigations at the same treatment
rate to promote hardening, N concentrations declined sharply,
and seedlings shifted biomass production toward roots. Overall,
shoots showed more plasticity to N rate than did roots. Survival
of either crop after outplanting was unaffected by nursery N
rate. For both crops, no seedlings emerged from the grass stage
during the first year after outplanting, and during the second
year, more seedlings exited the grass stage and were taller as
N rate increased up to 3 mg per week. By the third field season,
nearly all seedlings in the 2004 crop had exited the grass stage,
whereas 44% of 2005 crop grown at 1 mg N had yet to initiate
height growth, either because of differences in seed source between
the two crop years or because of droughty conditions. Our data
suggests that an application rate of about 3 mg N per week for
20 weeks plus two additional applications during hardening yields
satisfactory nursery growth as well as field response for the
container type we used. The potential for improving field performance
by using more robust fall fertilization during nursery production
should be investigated.